(second block, fourth letter of the prisoners' quadratic tap code...)

image
...am here to tap through the walls.


Fri Feb, 20 2009

Take HIm Down

"Steven Hayne and Michael West, forensic examiners for the state of Mississippi and beyond, have been the subject of alarm and criticism for close to two decades. No man has gone after the deadly duo with more tenacity than Reason's Radley Balko. His sleuthing has turned up a sheaf of damaging information over time, producing an ugly picture of two incredibly shoddy, corner-cutting, defendant-framing good ol' boys whose 'expert' testimony was anything but.

Today, Radley produced a piece of evidence so damning that I can only imagine it must end at least West's forensic career, and possibly Hayne's too.

If the wheels of justice work at all, it should also bring about a thorough review of scores of murder cases that most likely ended in wrongful convictions."
Rogier van Bakel high-fives The Agitator, who has been dogging the impossible Haynes' bones for a long time now. The latter should long have been mouldering in the bag, but the Day of the Bite could be drawing nigh upon them, one might hope now & then.

Feb 20, 09 | 8:31 am

AxeBites

Various guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay.

Early Norlin ES-335 -- 1970, in Walnut ("ES-335TDW"). This is a period-piece look and feel, and arguably the sound as well but that's to cut things very finely. A "classic" 335 would be the original of 1958 in the Sunburst or Natural finish, or the Cherry Red of 1959; the Walnut of 1970 (second year of that finish offering) is not really a "classic" 335. In the history of the Gibson aesthetic, this is analogous to, say, vertically-striped polyester bell-bottoms or Bahama Blue shag carpeting. None of this is to say that they're not cool guitars, and this is a nice one. Excellent photographs.

Chrome hardware, featuring the trapeze tailpiece (like my L-47 and I've always liked it) and ABR-1 bridge with period-typical nylon saddles. Bound rosewood fretboard, with small block markers, and then the crown inlay at the machine head. These would be the T-top Humbuckers. Vintage Nazis would moan that the upper bouts are pointy (the body templates were wearing-out in the factory) and the fourteen-degree machine head with the volute signals a sometimes not-fun era of the line, but these things really do rock or moan or whatever you want a 335-type semi-hollow to do. ...which, of course, is because it really is a 335.


In the months since I've let AxeBites languish all to bleedin' hell, Gibson's Robot Guitar technology has sifted out to other models than the original Les Paul application. I don't know how it's going: I still haven't even seen one of these self-tuners. I don't see piles of them burning on the sides of the highway, nor reverent hangings in display cases over bars, so who knows? This 2008 Robot SG is ready to rock in the Metallic Red. Nickel hardware; it's the stoptail wired for data to send to the tuners, with dual Humbuckers. It's a bound rosewood fretboard, but I really like the single-bound machine head with the crown inlay. That's a real cool old-school look, right there, to set off that crazy-ass color. {nod}